Tuesday, April 08, 2008

Those of you concerned about Sen. Barack Obama’s lack of foreign policy experience will be interested to read Mayhill Fowler’s Huffington Post report of the Senator's remarks at a fundraiser in San Francisco.

Asked what he would look for in a running mate, Fowler says Obama began:

"I would like somebody who knows about a bunch of stuff that I'm not as expert on," he said, and then he was off and running.

"I think a lot of people assume that might be some sort of military thing to make me look more Commander-in-Chief-like. Ironically, this is an area--foreign policy is the area where I am probably most confident that I know more and understand the world better than Senator Clinton or Senator McCain."

"It's ironic because this is supposedly the place where experience is most needed to be Commander-in-Chief. Experience in Washington is not knowledge of the world. This I know. When Senator Clinton brags 'I've met leaders from eighty countries'--I know what those trips are like! I've been on them. You go from the airport to the embassy. There's a group of children who do native dance. You meet with the CIA station chief and the embassy and they give you a briefing. You go take a tour of a plant that [with] the assistance of USAID has started something. And then--you go."

"You do that in eighty countries--you don't know those eighty countries. So when I speak about having lived in Indonesia for four years, having family that is impoverished in small villages in Africa--knowing the leaders is not important--what I know is the people. ..."

"I traveled to Pakistan when I was in college--I knew what Sunni and Shia was [sic] before I joined the Senate Foreign Relations Committee. . . ."

You remember Pakistan, don’t you? That’s the country Obama said he would bomb.

As quoted in Fowler's post, Obama sounds extremely self-assured and very inexperienced.

Fowler’s entire post is here. It includes a link to an audio of Obama’s quoted remarks.